Most fishing rod holder patents disclose the same general structure; that is, a cradle, to hold the rod's handle, with a hoop at the back end of the cradle, to loop over the butt end of the rod handle and keep the rod from tipping forward. One example of this design is shown in U.S. Design Pat. No. D246,661 to Engblom. Although the Engblom design patent does not show a fishing rod being held, persons familiar with the field will appreciate that a fishing rod's handle is inserted from the front of the holder by putting the butt of the rod under the hoop and letting the rod down to rest in the cradle. Gravity keeps the rod in the holder and the rear hoop prevents the rod from being tipped out of the cradle if a fish strikes.
A number of other fishing rod holders employ various means to secure the rod in the holder. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,760,592 to Gift uses a “holding socket” (15) formed of a pair of “jaws” (16) that clamp around a rod's handle. The jaws are held in place around the rod by dropping tapering shanks (17) of the socket into a complimentary tapered bore (22). U.S. Pat. No. 2,481,118 to Johns uses a clamp (13) to keep the butt of the rod from tipping out of the cradle. U.S. Pat. No. 2,484,427 to Schwenk uses a hook (29) to keep the rod's butt from tipping out of the cradle. U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,704 to Rother uses a “resilient member” (20) that wraps around the rod to hold it in place. U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,688 to Hartman et al. uses a receptacle (2) and cover (3) as two halves of a clam shell arrangement to hold a rod. U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,435 to Deering uses velcro (10) to hold a rod in a cradle (7). U.S. Pat. No. 6,357,166 to Malmanger et al. uses a “fingers” (332) to hold the butt of a rod and a “retaining member” (320) to hold the forward part of the rod. U.S. Pat. No. 7,406,795 to Follmar uses clam shell-type structure formed of a “retention member” (25) and a “J-member” (26) that swings down and together hold a rod in place.
U.S. Design Pat. No. D307,786 to Cedergreen is titled and described as a “Fishing Rod Holder”. Cedergreen's design an upwardly angled ring, open at the top, with a downwardly extending stem. Cedergreen does not show any object being held by the design, but it bears a close resemblance to a conventional microphone holder. It can only be supposed that the butt of a fishing rod's handle is lowered into the upwardly directed open end of the ring and jammed in place. Cedergreen's design has several functional disadvantages as a fishing rod holder. The inside diameter of Cedergreen's ring cannot be adjusted to accommodate differently sized rod handles. Because the Cedergreen design is intended to accept the butt end of a rod handle as it is lowered into the ring, there is a probability a fishing rod could be tipped down and pulled out of the holder, especially when a fish strikes, resulting in the loss of the fishing rod. The inside diameter of Cedergreen's ring is fixed, so it will not accommodate the tapered front portion of a fishing rod's handle. Cedergreen's holder has a fixed, upward tip angle that cannot be adjusted.